High winds batter water-logged Northwest, killing Idaho man and cutting power to half a million

SEATTLE (AP) – High winds toppled trees and power lines across parts of Washington state and Idaho, critically injuring two children, knocking out power to thousands and compounding the damage already wrought by more than a week of heavy rains and flooding.

Wind gusts reaching up to 85 miles per hour battered Pullman, Washington and the Idaho cities of Moscow and Lewiston on Wednesday morning. More than half a million power customers were without power in Idaho, Washington and Oregon, according to the website Poweroutage.com.

In southern Idaho, the Twin Falls County Sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook that high winds caused several old, internally rotten trees to fall, knocking down power lines and critically injuring two children. The sheriff’s office did not immediately release additional details about circumstances that led to the injuries. The Clearwater County Sheriff’s office in north-central Idaho warned residents that most of the county’s roads were blocked by downed trees.

Western Washington residents – many in communities already deluged by flooding – reported blown transformers, downed trees and powerlines and damaged roofs in social media posts early Wednesday morning.

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said Tuesday the extent of damage is profound but unclear, and more high water, mudslides and power outages were in the forecast.

A barrage of storms from weather systems stretching across the Pacific has dumped close to 2 feet (0.6 meters) of rain in parts of the Cascade Mountains, swelling rivers far beyond their banks and prompting more than 600 rescues across 10 counties.

As of Tuesday, there had been only one death – of a man who drove past warning signs into a flooded area – but key highways were buried or washed out, entire communities had been inundated, and saturated levees had given way. It could be months before State Route 2, which connects cities in western Washington with the Stevens Pass ski area and the faux Bavarian tourist town of Leavenworth across the mountains, can be reopened, Ferguson said.

“We’re in for the long haul,” Ferguson said at a news conference. “If you get an evacuation order, for God’s sakes, follow it.”

It won’t be until after waters recede and landslide risk subsides that crews will be able to fully assess the damage, he said. The state and some counties are making several million dollars available to help people pay for hotels, groceries and other necessities, pending more extensive federal assistance that Ferguson and Washington’s congressional delegation expect to see approved.

According to the governor’s office, first responders had conducted at least 629 rescues and 572 assisted evacuations. As many as 100,000 people had been under evacuation orders at times, many of them in the flood plain of the Skagit River north of Seattle.

Elevated rivers and flood risk could persist until at least late this month, according to the National Weather Service.

Residents near a breached levee in Pacific, south of Seattle, were told to leave their homes well before dawn Tuesday, just hours after an evacuation alert was lifted for residents near another broken levee. The King County Sheriff’s Office used a helicopter equipped with a loudspeaker and knocked on doors, according to Brandyn Hull, communications manager for the sheriff’s office.

A 911 caller who reported water entering an apartment in Pacific around 1:20 a.m. Tuesday was the first sign of the levee breach for the Valley Regional Fire Authority, spokesperson Kelly Hawks said. Crews evacuated about 100 people early Tuesday, pulling some people from the windows of their first-floor apartments, she said.

Eventually the residents of about 220 homes evacuated. No injuries were reported.

Faced with the breach, Pacific’s police department put out a call on social media Tuesday morning for a tractor with a bucket capable of reaching 8 feet (2.4 meters) high, to fill a sandbagging machine. Once the tractor was acquired, the department called for members of the public to help fill sandbags.

In the Snohomish area northeast of Seattle, a man who drove past warning signs was found dead early Tuesday in a car submerged in a flooded ditch. The driver, believed to be a 33-year-old man, was pronounced dead at the scene after lifesaving measures failed.

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Associated Press writers Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho and Martha Bellisle in Seattle contributed to this report.